“At this juncture, mon ami, I was brought into the affair. Mr. Pearson called upon me. While profoundly shocked by the death of Wu Ling, his chief anxiety was to recover the papers which were the object of the Chinaman’s visit to England. The main anxiety of the police, of course, would be to track down the murderer—the recovery of the papers would be a secondary consideration. What he wanted me to do was to cooperate with the police while acting in the interests of the company.
“I consented readily enough. It was clear that there were two fields of search open to me. On the one hand, I might look among the employees of the company who knew of the Chinaman’s coming; on the other, among the passengers on the boat who might have been acquainted with his mission. I started with the second, as being a narrower field of search. In this I coincided with Inspector Miller, who was in charge of the case—a man altogether different from our friend Japp, conceited, ill-mannered and quite insufferable. Together we interviewed the officers of the ship. They had little to tell us. Wu Ling had kept much to himself on the voyage. He had been intimate with but two of the other passengers—one a broken-down European named Dyer who appeared to bear a somewhat unsavoury reputation, the other a young bank clerk named Charles Lester, who was returning from Hong Kong. We were lucky enough to obtain snapshots of both these men. At the moment there seemed little doubt that if either of the two was implicated, Dyer was the man. He was known to be mixed up with a gang of Chinese crooks, and was altogether a most likely suspect.
“Our next step was to visit the Russell Square Hotel. Shown a snapshot of Wu Ling, they recognized him at once. We then showed them the snapshot of Dyer, but to our disappointment, the hall porter declared positively that that was not the man who had come to the hotel on the fatal morning. Almost as an afterthought, I produced the photograph of Lester, and to my surprise the man at once recognized it.
“ ‘Yes, sir,’ he asserted, ‘that’s the gentleman who came in at half past ten and asked for Mr. Wu Ling, and afterwards went out with him.’
“The affair was progressing. Our next move was to interview Mr. Charles Lester. He met us with the utmost frankness, was desolated to hear of the Chinaman’s untimely death, and put himself at our disposal in every way. His story was as follows: By arrangement with Wu Ling, he called for him at the hotel at ten-thirty. Wu Ling, however, did not appear. Instead, his servant came, explained that his master had had to go out, and offered to conduct the young man to where his master now was. Suspecting nothing, Lester agreed, and the Chinaman procured a taxi. They drove for some time in the direction of the docks. Suddenly becoming mistrustful, Lester stopped the taxi and got out, disregarding the servant’s protests. That, he assured us, was all he knew.
“Apparently satisfied, we thanked him and took our leave. His story was soon proved to be a somewhat inaccurate one. To begin with, Wu Ling had had no servant with him, either on the boat or at the hotel. In the second place, the taxi driver who had driven the two men on that morning came forward. Far from Lester’s having left the taxi en route, he and the Chinese gentleman had driven to a certain unsavoury dwelling place in Limehouse, right in the heart of Chinatown. The place in question was more or less well known as an opium-den of the lowest description. The two gentlemen had gone in—about an hour later the English gentleman, whom he identified from the photograph, came out alone. He looked very pale and ill, and directed the taxi man to take him to the nearest underground station.
“Inquiries were made about Charles Lester’s standing, and it was found that, though bearing an excellent character, he was heavily in debt, and had a secret passion for gambling. Dyer, of course, was not lost sight of. It seemed just faintly possible that he might have impersonated the other man, but that idea was proved utterly groundless. His alibi for the whole of the day in question was absolutely unimpeachable. Of course, the proprietor of the opium den denied everything with Oriental stolidity. He had never seen Charles Lester. No two gentlemen had been to the place that morning. In any case, the police were wrong: no opium was ever smoked there.
“His denials, however well meant, did little to help Charles Lester. He was arrested for the murder of Wu Ling. A search of his effects was made, but no papers relating to the mine were discovered. The proprietor of the opium den was also taken into custody, but a cursory raid of his premises yielded nothing. Not even a stick of opium rewarded the zeal of the police.
“In the meantime my friend Mr. Pearson was in a great state of agitation. He strode up and down my room, uttering great lamentations.
“ ‘But you must have some ideas, M. Poirot!’ he kept urging. ‘Surely you must have some ideas!’
“ ‘Certainly I have ideas,’ I replied cautiously. ‘That is the trouble—one has too many; therefore they all lead in different directions.’
“ ‘For instance?’ he suggested.
“ ‘For instance—the taxi-driver. We have only his word for it that he drove the two men to that house. That is one idea. Then—was it really that house they went to? Supposing that they left the taxi there, passed through the house and out by another entrance and went elsewhere?’
“Mr. Pearson seemed struck by that.
“ ‘But you do nothing but sit and think? Can’t we do something?’
“He was of an impatient temperament, you comprehend.
“ ‘Monsieur,’ I said with dignity, ‘It is not for Hercule Poirot to run up and down the evil-smelling streets of Limehouse like a little dog of no breeding. Be calm. My agents are at work.’
“On the following day I had news for him. The two men had indeed passed through the house in question, but their real objective was a small eating house close to the river. They were seen to pass in there, and Lester came out alone.
“And then, figure to yourself, Hastings, an idea of the most unreasonable seized this Mr. Pearson! Nothing would suit him but that we should go ourselves to this eating house and make investigations. I argued and prayed, but he would not listen. He talked of disguising himself—he even suggested that I—I should—I hesitate to say it—should shave off my moustache! Yes, rien que ça! I pointed out to him that that was an idea ridiculous and absurd. One destroys not a thing of beauty wantonly. Besides, shall not a Belgian gentleman with a moustache desire to see life and smoke opium just as readily as one without a moustache?
“Eh bien, he gave in on that, but he still insisted on his project. He turned up that evening—Mon dieu, what a figure! He wore what he called the ‘pea jacket,’ his chin, it was dirty and unshaved; he had a scarf of the vilest that offended the nose. And figure to yourself, he was enjoying himself! Truly, the English are mad! He made some changes in my own appearance. I permitted it. Can one argue with a maniac? We started out—after all, could I let him go alone, a child dressed up to act the charades?”
“Of course you couldn’t,” I replied.
“To continue—we arrived. Mr. Pearson talked English of the strangest. He represented himself to be a man of the sea. He talked of ‘lubbers’ and ‘focselles’ and I know not what. It was a low little room with many Chinese in it. We ate of peculiar dishes. Ah, Dieu, mon estomac! ” Poirot clasped that portion of his anatomy before continuing. “Then there came to us the proprietor, a Chinaman with a face of evil smiles.
“ ‘You gentlemen no likee food here,’ he said. ‘You come for what you likee better. Piecee pipe, eh?’
“Mr. Pearson, he gave me the great kick under the table. (He had on the boots of the sea too!) And he said: ‘I don’t mind if I do, John. Lead ahead.’
“The Chinaman smiled, and he took us through a door and to a cellar and through a trapdoor, and down some steps and up again into a room all full of divans and cushions of the most comfortable. We lay down and a Chinese boy took off our boots. It was the best moment of the evening. Then they brought us the opium pipes and cooked the opium pills, and we pretended to smoke and then to sleep and dream. But when we were alone, Mr. Pearson called softly to me, and immediately he began c
rawling along the floor. We went into another room where other people were asleep, and so on, until we heard two men talking. We stayed behind a curtain and listened. They were speaking of Wu Ling.
“ ‘What about the papers?’ said one.
“ ‘Mr. Lester, he takee those,’ answered the other, who was a Chinaman. ‘He say, puttee them allee in safee place—where pleeceman no lookee.’
“ ‘Ah, but he’s nabbed,’ said the first one.
“ ‘He gettee free. Pleeceman not sure he done it.’
“There was more of the same kind of thing, then apparently the two men were coming our way, and we scuttled back to our beds.
“ ‘We’d better get out of here,’ said Pearson, after a few minutes had elapsed. ‘This place isn’t healthy.’
“ ‘You are right, monsieur,’ I agreed. ‘We have played the farce long enough.’
“We succeeded in getting away, all right, paying handsomely for our smoke. Once clear of Limehouse, Pearson drew a long breath.
“ ‘I’m glad to get out of that,’ he said. ‘But it’s something to be sure.’
“ ‘It is indeed,’ I agreed. ‘And I fancy that we shall not have much difficulty in finding what we want—after this evening’s masquerade.’
“And there was no difficulty whatsoever,” finished Poirot suddenly.
This abrupt ending seemed so extraordinary that I stared at him.
“But—but where were they?” I asked.
“In his pocket—tout simplement.”
“But in whose pocket?”